Just shoot me?

Now let’s be honest with ourselves. If a terrorist act occurred in Sydney or Melbourne, which ethno-religious group would be the first suspected of involvement? Vietnamese Buddhists? South African Jews? Kiwi back packers?

Would police officers be scouting yoga classes at Byron Bay for terror suspects? Will shock jocks be calling upon the governments to crack down on Steiner Schools? Will Liberal backbenchers be complaining about Hindus not abiding by Australian values? Will there be talk of detaining Callithumpians in special camps for their own protection?

The reality is that people with strange names and or slightly darker skin colour will be the first suspected. That means men with beards and women with veils. And that means many Muslim Australians will be targeted. But not just them.

Some months back, I employed a clerk to work in my law firm. She has an Anglo-Australian father and a South Indian mother. She considers herself a Catholic and was born in Australia. Yet following the London bombing, she could feel people were watching her more closely on trains and buses.

I have another friend who never met her Muslim father. I met her some 18 months ago when she was working behind a bar serving beer and wine. She has a typical Arabic name.

Within days of the September 11 attacks in New York, FBI agents arrested their first suspect. He had dark brown skin and wore a turban. Some days later, another man sporting a beard and turban was shot dead by a crazed killer seeking revenge. Both men were Sikhs.

Mr Ruddock insists that racial profiling will not be used in the implementation and enforcement of the new laws. But Mr Ruddock has not addressed the compelling argument made by the president of the national police union. State and federal police will be implementing the laws on the ground.

If a terror suspect decides to run, police officers don’t have time to go before a magistrate or wait for specific orders. They just shoot. Just as they did in London. And when they realise the person they just killed was an Indigenous Australian or a French Jew or a Brazilian backpacker, it will be too late.